http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020509/ap_on_go_co/attacks_intelligence_6

Senator: Justice, CIA Uncooperative 
Thu May 9,12:26 PM ET 
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional investigators examining how preparations
for the Sept. 11 attacks went undetected by the nation's law enforcement
and intelligence agencies have been receiving less than full cooperation
from those agencies, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
says.

  
Sen. Bob Graham (news, bio, voting record), D-Fla., told reporters
Wednesday that some requested documents weren't being turned over, and
interviews of potential witnesses were taking place in intimidating
environments. He declined to go into specifics.

Graham's comments pointed to just the latest troubles in Congress'
investigation, being conducted jointly by the Senate and House
intelligence committees.

Its director, former CIA (news - web sites) Inspector General L. Britt
Snider, resigned after little more than two months on the job, apparently
forced out over a personnel dispute with the Senate Intelligence
Committee's vice chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby (news, bio, voting record),
R-Ala.

Graham acknowledged Snider's departure had caused some interruption in the
investigation.

The tumult has forced back the beginning of public hearings on the issue,
once promised to take place as early as April. They now won't begin before
June.

After hearing of Graham's comments, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow described
the agency's cooperation with the investigation as "extensive,
extraordinary and unprecedented."

"We've given them access to thousands of highly classified documents," he
said. "We've given them briefings. We've given them information we have
assembled, which, without our efforts, they would be unable to find. We've
housed members of their staff in our headquarters. We've done all these
things while we're fighting a war."

Justice Department (news - web sites) spokesman Mark Carallo said, "The
department has been cooperating to the fullest extent possible with the
congressional committees, and we will continue to do so. We are always
willing to discuss concerns of members of Congress in hopes of resolving
any perceived problems."

Graham acknowledged Justice officials told the committee that disclosing
some documents could interfere with criminal investigations, but Graham
said the committee regularly deals with classified materials and there's
no chance those documents will be made public.

Graham said committee officials intend to take their complaints personally
to Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) and CIA Director
George Tenet.

"We thought we had from those highest levels the kind of assurances we
would get cooperation," Graham said.

One official familiar with the investigation said some committee requests
for information have required the compilation of hundreds of thousands of
documents. But the investigation has uncovered no single missed piece of
intelligence that would have allowed U.S. authorities to stop the attacks.

Graham said the committee may exercise its subpoena power to force
cooperation.

The Democratic senator suggested the reluctance to cooperate reflected a
tendency in the Bush administration, noting the administration's refusal
to let Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge testify before Congress and
its resistance to turning over documents relating to the administration's
consultations on national energy policy.

Also Wednesday, Graham's committee approved an intelligence budget for
2003. Graham and committee officials declined to provide details. Shelby
said it contained a "meaningful" increase in funding for the nation's
intelligence community.

The total intelligence budget is kept secret, although open-government
advocates managed to get the government to disclose its total in
1998: $26.7 billion. Since, it has been estimated to be around $30
billion.

Last year, the intelligence budget went up by about 8 percent. Officials
said revitalizing the CIA's spy networks and improving the computers that
analyze signals intelligence remain key goals in this year's budget.

This year, President Bush (news - web sites) was believed to have proposed
increasing the CIA's budget, which only makes up a portion of the total
intelligence budget, from about $3.5 billion to between $5 billion and
$5.5 billion for 2003.

Much of that would pay for expanding CIA's corps of overseas case
officers, hiring allies and equipping counterterrorism teams in foreign
countries averse to having U.S. military advisers on their soil.

Other intelligence agencies included in the budget are the National
Security Agency, which conducts electronic wiretapping and signals
gathering for foreign intelligence purposes; the National Reconnaissance
Office, which designs and operates spy satellites; and the National
Imagery and Mapping Agency, which interprets satellite imagery and makes
military maps.